New Writing - A Birthday Party for Steinmetz

A Birthday Party for Steinmetz

“Steinmetz, Steinmetz!”   They cheered and stomped their feet, or at least that’s how he told it.  The room was on tenterhooks, as he described the crowd rushing from the stands and hoisting him, their hobbled hero, onto their shoulders. Of course, they were rapt.  It was Steinmetz’ birthday party after all, I reminded myself.  

The rough cardigan I wore clearly intended on itching me to death.  Between the sweater and the cheap plastic of the seats, I was transported 25 years to Schwartz’s on Saint-Laurent boulevard.  I crammed a handful of cold cuts from the tray between two slices of heavily-mustarded rye bread and scooped a small armada of pickles onto the side of the plate to ride shotgun.  The bartender was watching a golf tournament from somewhere hot and lush on the TV.  Tiger Woods missed an 18-foot putt on 15 and slipped another shot back of the lead.

The DJ kept the music to a dull roar, playing some light contemporary tunes that seemed to seep from one to another seamlessly.  I scratched my arm through the sweater and knew that I’d be tearing up the skin soon.

Uncle Frank was well into his rye and slapping people too forcefully on the back.  Steinmetz kept telling the story of his greatest soccer success, although he said, football or ‘footie’, I think.  He emphasized how impressive it was to lead his team to a Division 2 title with a compound fracture of the left foot.  The women, always a little taken with how he wore cravats and bow ties (even when they weren’t really in fashion), hung on his every word.  Even Irma and my mother smiled dreamily. 

Steinmetz moved from one triumph to another, seamlessly.  His escapades on the pitch gave way to the story of how he single-handedly raised hell in the Łódź Ghetto, before fleeing across the Channel to England in a leaky dory.  

Uncle Frank studied his rye silently, eyeing Steinmetz occasionally, until he finished his story in a flurry of waving arms.  It appeared he could hear no more, and so he cleared his throat to attract the room’s attention.  Not surprisingly, he captured the attention of virtually no one.  Irma turned a scalding look on him.  He went back to drinking silently. 

“But perhaps my greatest moment,” Steinmetz paused, “my fondest memory, occurred on this very spot.”  And with that his head fell, like he was deeply affected by the story as it washed over him anew. 

I found even my jaw and tongued slowed as they worked on the sandwich.  My mother was rapt.

"It was right here,” Steinmetz said, pointing at a spot on the floor not six feet from where he stood, and then he moved to the very location.  “Right here,” he said, “that I met Rebecca in the year nineteen hundred and fifty.”   At the mention of his dead, sainted wife, you knew it wouldn’t be long before there wasn’t a dry eye to be found.  “Oh, Rebecca,” he said with a practised warmth. 

I thought Uncle Frank rolled his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure without looking away from the spectacle of Steinmetz weeping, in a quiet dignified manner.  I pushed the last of the kosher dills into my mouth and bowed my head in the only facsimile of respect that I could think of. 

It was then that the loud scrawl of metal chair legs on linoleum tore through the place like shrapnel. The bartender turned away from Phil Mickelson’s tee shot on 15.

“Bullshit!”  Uncle Frank shouted.  The bartender stepped to the end of the bar with purpose.

The DJ took notice, too, increasing the volume slightly.

For an instant, Steinmetz did not move, although every craning neck in the hall had snapped ‘round to bring eyes to bear on this horrid display.

I kept my head down.  “That’s bull-shit, Steinmetz, and you know it!”  Uncle Frank was on his feet and moving toward the spot where Steinmetz claimed he’d met Rebecca all those many years ago.  “I call bull shit.” 

Steinmetz turned a pair of understanding eyes on his denouncer, but barely lifted his brows. 

“This place, this spot, wasn’t built in 1950.  This …” and Uncle Frank made a broad gesture as if to take in the entire place, “was a cow pasture in 1950!”  He made a dismissive gesture in Steinmetz’ direction.  Surprisingly, Steinmetz did not reply.

"It’s all bullshit,” Uncle Frank derided, growing bolder.  “He” (Frank pointed at Steinmetz, as if he were the accused in the dock) “was an adequate midfielder at best, and I have reason to doubt that he escaped the Ghetto!”  A gasp went up from the room like the last desperate desire of a people, extinguished.  All eyes turned back to Steinmetz.

He lowered his eyes again, and for a moment he was just a sad old man, suddenly smaller and fragile-looking.  When his voice first re-started, it was soft and vulnerable.

“It is true, perhaps, that I was not the greatest footballer.”  He raised his eyes to meet his accuser for the first time.  “But there can be no dispute” (as his voice grew in depth and strength) “that I did score the winning goal in the Division 2 title match in 1946!”  There was a harrumph from the men and the ladies were all nodding in agreement that what he said could not really be disputed.

“You may question,” he said, his fire returning, “my escape from the Jewish guard and the Nazis, too.  But,” he whacked a fork off of his hip, with an oddly metallic thunk, “can you explain the German lead in my bones?  I think not.”  Steinmetz looked satisfied, and I imagined the stands clearing as his supporters stormed the pitch. 

All eyes turned back to Frank.  He looked like a man about to evaporate back into the crowd, sensing his defeat.  However, liquor boldness doesn’t melt away that easily.  He stood his ground, and the fire in him built anew.  I washed the remainder of my sandwich down with the last mouthful of the rye he’d left on the table, only now able to take in the final showdown. 

The bartender continued to watch from the end of the bar, wiping the same spot over and over.  The DJ had increased the pace, too, moving from the faceless songs he’d been playing most of the afternoon to something more recognizable:

It's getting late have you seen my mates?

Ma, tell me when the boys get here.

It's seven o'clock and I want to rock,

Want to get a belly full of beer.

Uncle Frank stuck out his hand to me, and I passed him his glass.  He raised it to his mouth, without first looking, and then slammed it down on the table when he realized it contained no further courage. 

Elton John’s Saturday Night seemed to get a bit louder, as Tiger’s drive on 16 went way right and bounced off a spectator.  Things were going horribly wrong.  I felt a little warmth in my chest from the rye, but I was transfixed by the showdown unfolding in the small ballroom of the Marriott.  Uncle Frank looked like a man ten years younger as he stepped toward Steinmetz.

“You, sir,” he said with venom and deliberation, one gnarled finger pointing directly at Steinmetz, “are a bag of wind.”  I tried to focus on the television to see how Tiger would rescue himself from this unfortunate turn of events, but the prickling of the sweater kept bringing me back to the table and the plastic bench.  “You cannot possibly claim with a straight face that you met Rebecca on this spot?!  If you do, you’re a, a …” and even Uncle Frank stammered a moment before going all in:  “a LIAR!” 

The bartender was burly, I noticed.  Even the banquet servers looked like they could take a punch.  I surveyed the room for exits.

Steinmetz looked to the crowd assembled to honour his achievement of 80 years.  They were shocked into silence, but the room buzzed with anticipation of Steinmetz’ answer.  Irma and my mother were torn between embarrassment and expectation.  Uncle Frank sensed that he stood on a great precipice.

Don't give us none of your aggravation,

We had it with your discipline.

Saturday night's alright for fighting,

Get a little action in!

Steinmetz sagged onto a chair.  Some disciple produced a glass of water and he drank for a long, still moment.

Steinmetz looked straight into Uncle Frank.  “You’re right, Francis.”  He said, and let those syllables hang for a moment.  Rory McIlroy’s second shot on 16 hung in the air, a tiny speck of white floating across the blue screen.  The DJ turned the music down a little; a couple of young kids who were dancing on the other side of the room stopped to see why.  The air in the room got uncomfortable and prickly.  I ate my last pickle, in case I’d need the energy.  I slid further back on my chair, away from Uncle Frank dangling out on the edge.

“You’re right, Francis, and you’re wrong at the same time.”  Steinmetz’ eyes took on the familiar glint they’d had earlier.  “This room did not exist in 1950.  It, indeed, was a farm.”  The banquet hall was again still, hanging on his every word.  My mother looked like an infatuated girl.  His pauses were subtle and polished, as he continued.  “And at that time, I was still a young man, looking for his lot in this world.  I travelled from place to place around Montreal for a couple of years after I landed here, a refugee as they said at the time.  I was restless, and that was how I found myself at the gates of a farm just outside the city in the year 1950.  Looking for work, I told the farmer.  He was a Scotsman, I recall.  McDougall or Stewart or something.  He knew cheap labour when he saw it, and he almost immediately put me to work.  He called off his dog, and sent me to the barn with another fellow.  I remember him, Seamus.  A man of maybe 30, with muscles on his muscles and a bushy, red beard.”

He relented long enough for people to take a bite or a drink, but no one moved. 

“Seamus handed me a pitchfork, assuming I knew how to use one, and sent me up to the hayloft.  It was dark and dusty and it smelled of cow … manure,” he said, setting the scene.  The bartender had returned to the golf tournament on TV.  Tiger Woods scowled, but everyone listening to Steinmetz was amused anyway.  “So, I bucked hay for a few hours, until around noon.  I was leaning on the pitchfork, looking out over the farm, when I heard a shrill whistle.  I looked down, to the ground just outside the barn, and there she stood.  Rebecca.  My lot was cast, as certain as I’m here today.”

The room sighed, and the music got a little louder.  Uncle Frank stood alone, punctured by a hundred hard looks.  He was a flat tire.

“And, so you see, Francis, you are a little bit right and yet, you are even more wrong.  It was right here,” and he used that perfect pause again to point to the very spot, “that I met my Rebecca.”  And with that, Steinmetz dabbed at his eye and got up from the chair.  “God rest her beautiful soul,” he added, and retreated to the bar at a shuffle befitting a man of his age.

It was then that the room rose up in a symphony of scraping chair legs.  Uncle Frank was encircled as he stuttered and looked to me for assistance.  I just disappeared into the roiling crowd, heading toward the bar to watch the final holes of the tournament.  I was anywhere but by his side at that moment.  I have no guilt. 

The music got louder yet – Elton exhorting 'Cause Saturday night's the night I like / Saturday night's alright, alright, alright – and the room (my aged mother among them) lifted Uncle Frank high on their shoulders like a six-foot plank, and carried him to the exit.  The young kids on the far side of the room danced riotously as Frank crowd-surfed right out of the banquet hall, calling out helplessly to be put down. 

I stood beside Steinmetz as he tentatively sipped at a glass of scotch.  The bartender made no attempt to intercede, instead finding a new spot on the bar to wipe.  I said, “McIlroy is really putting on a clinic.”

Steinmetz took another sip and said, “it’s only the third round.  Don’t count Tiger out yet.”  I think he winked.

The crowd, having deposited Uncle Frank in the parking lot, returned to the hall.  As they lifted their glasses, I swear that they chanted, “Steinmetz, Steinmetz”.  The birthday boy raised his glass to them, and the chant of “Steinmetz, Steinmetz” got louder.  I asked the bartender for a rye and scratched my arm.  I think Tiger made it close in the final round of that tournament.  At least, that’s the way I choose to remember it.